Cheap Health Insurance

In present day scenario there is great advancement in medical and health care. The quality health care requires heavy expenditure. The result is that better quality of health insurance coverage has become almost beyond the reach of common American citizen. Health insurance is extremely essential to protect against huge financial need in case of medical emergency. There are normally two types of health insurance available for public, which can be purchased from a licensed health insurance, which is generally arranged by the employer for his employees.

In addition to above senior citizens, disabled people, poor mothers and her children get health insurance coverage from federal/ state government under Medicaid and Medicare schemes. The insurance regulations for legibility vary from state to state. Current problem haunting general American citizen is how to obtain adequate and cost effective health insurance policy. Categories most concerned are small business workers and students. In general people are not fully conversant with the complicated insurance regulation and clauses included in policy document by insurance companies.

Tips for obtaining cheap health insurance:

It is widely known that in past decade the rate of increase in health insurance premium is much rapid than increase in salary and usages. This puts greater financial burden on general public as well as small business owners.

Individual Health Insurance: This is definitely most complicated product available in health insurance market. Some health insurance companies will not entertain any claim for a period of two years for preexisting medical conditions, which is certainly a very costly proposition.

Today we have a much wider choice available to locate cheap health insurance and affordable health insurance policies.You can contact many insurance companies through your telephone directory and ascertain which of them provide affordable heath insurance?

You can also find website of insurance companies and request for online quotes for various health insurance plans.However this search might not be adequate to protect you fully against medical emergencies. While selecting an affordable health insurance, lower price should not be the only criteria but it should be clearly ascertained as to what health insurance conditions are covered under the policy under consideration.

Important points which will assist is choosing cheap and affordable health insurance plan are mentioned below:

It is not advisable to rush to the first offered low quote, without doing proper investigation regarding provisions of the insurance policy.

Suitability of health insurance plan depends upon your life conditions.

If you are an employee best choice is through your employer, other choices are independent health insurance plan, which you buy from open market or state sponsored low-income plans.

If you are self-employed or professional, independent health insurance policy is suitable or state sponsored low income plans are suitable.

If you are not working but were an employee, health care can be obtained under COBRA h (Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1985). This law provides that health coverage provided by employer shall continue for a period up to 18 months, if insured person is laid off or category changes from full time to part time or divorced.

After ascertaining your health insurance requirements your next step should be to select a good insurance company. Primary consideration should be financial health of the company and type of health insurance plans offered by them. Their history of claim settlement is also important. You should prepare questions you require to be answered by insurance company. These should be mainly about list of doctors, specialists and what health conditions are not included in their insurance policies.

Before finalizing the health insurance plan, you must study the HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability & Accountability Act), which was converted into law on 21st August 1996 by President Bill Clinton. This law is basically to improve the health care system and insurance privacy protection of medical information of insured person. This law checks fraudulent activities and insure better data system. The insurance company you are selecting should be abiding by HIPAA law.

Now you should call on selected insurance companies and invite quotations for different health plan under offer. Scrutinizing numerous health insurance plan is a Herculean task, but we can arrive at an affordable and suitable health plan by considering the following:

DOCTORS: Location and availability of doctors in the list of the insurance company.

SPECIALISTS 9Obstericains, Gynecologists: Their availability and mode of utilization incase of emergencies.

Emergency and hospital care: The type and quality of hospital and emergency room available.

Prescription: If you are using some drugs regularly, you will need that your health policy cover prescribing such drug.

Add Ons: While comparing health insurance plan what additional services are provided is of utmost importance.

Cost: After checking all other details now we should compare cost of different health plans. Here comes time to compare premium, deductibles, co-payments and lifetime of reimbursement. Exclusions are also very important criteria you must go through the history of health conditions not covered under plan.

Now we enumerate commonly used terms in health insurance:

Deductibles: This is usually a yearly amount to be paid by insured only after payment of this amount insurance company will provide benefits available in health insurance policy.

Coinsurance: This is also a fixed amount, payable by the insured in addition to deductibles, before payment from insurer commences. Some services like visit of doctor can be availed only by payment of co-insurance.

Co-payment: Sometimes used in place of co-insurance.

Out-of-pocket: This is the amount you have to pay annually from your pocket, in addition to premium.

Lifetime maximum: The total amount that insurance company will pay in whole lifespan.

Pre-existing: The illness/ sickness suffered by insured before purchasing the policy. Some health plans cover them, while others totally exclude them. Some policies allow coverage of such conditions after lapse of certain time period.

Exclusions: Medical and health conditions that are not covered by the health insurance policy.

Grace period: Time period allowed by insurance companies to pay premium after expiry of due date.

Waiting period: Time period for which insured has to wait for coverage of pre-existing condition under the health insurance policy.

HMO: Health maintenance organization, choice of physician, health care provider with the company. PPO:Preferred provider of the organization, physicians can be chosen but cost will increase.

Point of Service Plan: You can choose your own physicians, who has agreed to offer discounted rates.

Now we are ready to buy a health insurance plan. The main difference between cheap/ affordable health plan and wide coverage health plan is cost. The other one provides quality health cover under highly equipped and sophisticated medical institutions supervised by specialists. Where as cheap health plans cover bare minimum and use of doctors and hospitals are limited to the list or network of the insurance company.

Health care insurance is a burning current topic. It is estimated that more than 45 million Americans do not have health insurance cover, because they cannot meet financial requirements. Insurance premium and cost of drugs and hospitalization is rapidly increasing and are too expensive for common American to afford it. Most vulnerable are such unlucky people who get seriously ill. American health system is inadequate in the sense that we treat this subject as commodity.

Federal and state governments leave citizens to fund for themselves in case of medical needs. Mostly people have to purchase health insurance from private parties in open market paying hefty premiums, making them financially broke. It till not is out of place to say that USA has the worst health care system amongst developed countries. In most of the countries healthcare is state subject and they take proper care of their people.